1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to sheet money feeding apparatus and more specifically to automatic money dispensing machines which must accurately and reliably feed a precise number of sheets of money as specified by a user without regard to the new or used condition of the money.
2. Prior art
Both the owners and the users of automatic money dispensing machines prefer that mint new money be dispensed from their machines. A money cassette will hold approximately 30% more mint money than it will hold used money so the cost of replentishing the money supply is lower when new money is dispensed. Customers also prefer to receive crisp new money instead of used money which may be crumpled and dirty. Furthermore used money often arrives at the owners premises in dirty condition with tape or staples which must be removed for reliable feeding by any known machines. This labor raises the cost of using used money in a money dispensing machine. However, in order to provide uninterrupted service in those instances when mint money is not available, a desireable money dispensing machine must be able to dispense used money as well as mint new money.
A number of different apparatus is known in the prior art for feeding sheets of money. An example is U.S. Pat. No. 4,221,376 assigned to the assignee of this invention. Apparatus of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,221,376 has proven to be able to accurately and reliably feed sheets of mint new money but in some environments it has been found that apparatus of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,052 feeds used money more accurately and reliably. The apparatus of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,052 however suffers from an inability to reliably separate and accurately feed sheets of mint money which are still formed into blocks of sheets or which have under the influence of humidity and warm temperatures reformed themselves into blocks of sheets which adhere to one another.
Accordingly, we have invented novel modifications to the apparatus of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,052 in order to improve its ability to accurately and reliably feed mint new money. Others have been unsuccessfull in their attempt overcome this inability of the apparatus to accurately and reliably feed mint money. Their solution has been to play down this deficiency and emphasize the ability of the apparatus to feed used money. Where mint money must be fed, others have suggested that owners feed the mint money through money counting apparatus of the type well known in banks and other financial institutions, thereby effectively converting the mint money into used money under controlled conditions. The requirement to feed mint money through a counting machine several times is a significant cost of labor and capital similar to the need to remove tape and staples from real used money.
Accordingly, the prior art lacks a single apparatus which can accurately and reliably dispense both used and mint new banknotes interchangeably.